"Don't worry about it, nobody died" - But they did!

With the brashness and confidence of youth my son, many years ago, would often say if either my wife or I came home from work with some problem or other that was causing us anxiety "Don't worry about it, nobody died". We always had a laugh about his flippant comment but accepted that he probably had a point and in a way, I suppose, it all helped to keep things in some kind of perspective.

A grim faced Boris Johnson -
regret but no responsibility

I've thought much about his "words of wisdom" in the past day or two as I have kept up with the news. Firstly, earlier this week a suitably grim looking Boris Johnson told us that the 100,000 UK Covid deaths landmark was a great source of sorrow to him and "difficult to compute" but, he added, that his government "truly did everything they could". And then yesterday we residents of Nottingham read the Coroner's Report following the suicide of a young Nottingham mother Philippa Day. She had committed suicide following grave and accepted errors by the DWP in the payment of her various benefits resulting in her getting seriously in debt and this leading to her suicide. I listened horrified as the TV news played her last pleading and harrowing phone call asking for help.

Both of these bits of news have one thing in common - people died; it doesn't get much graver and more serious than that - as I'm sure that my son would agree!

Both Boris Johnson and a "spokesman" for the DWP expressed their respective sorrow and condolences at these events but whilst they expressed sorrow and regret, neither took responsibility. And so, our world moves on. Apologies like Johnson's and that of the DWP are given to paper over the cracks and provide a modicum of "decency"; honour (if there be such a thing in our modern world) is satisfied. But two days later these easily spoken and cheap words of sympathy, accompanied with grave faces and sombre words, are forgotten - like yesterday's news they become today's fish and chip paper and the day after that they are forgotten as they fill our paper recycling wheelie bins - gone, blown away, unheeded in the maelstrom of our frenetic world.

So, I ask myself - following my son's youthful pearls of wisdom that the death of someone (or in Boris Johnson's case 100,000 Covid "someones") is of some grave significance and therefore a legitimate cause for concern and anxiety - shouldn't something serious happen to ensure that these grave matters are treated with due seriousness, that justice is served and that full and appropriate action is taken in respect of the deaths these almost certainly "innocent" people? Or will it, as I fear, be allowed to just pass like water under the bridge - a bit of unfortunate rather sad and messy collateral damage arising out of the world in which we live? Something that is regrettable but not a matter to get "out of perspective" or (to use a modern phrase) that we should "beat ourselves up with". Maybe we should just follow the advice in another clichéd bit of contemporary vapid and vacuous popular street culture posing as profound wisdom and "move on, get over it". I think not.

From what we read and know, both of these tragedies in their different ways could have been avoided or at least minimised with a different set of priorities and decisions. The crocodile tears of our PM and the weasel words of the DWP are, in my view, not acceptable. For years now successive Tory governments have promoted the policy of "naming and shaming" when people in other walks of life doctors, teachers, social workers, police officers and the like fail in their perceived responsibilities - so why not governments and their ministers and government departments? But no-one is named and shamed, no-one resigns, no-one falls on their sword as a matter of personal and professional "honour". The reason for this is simple, namely that naming and shaming would not work for governments and ministers because that policy only works if those who are being vilified have any personal or professional "shame" - in other words they care about how well they do their job and so do feel shamed if they fall short or are accused by their superiors of falling short. In contrast, our current government and its ministers - and most of all our PM, have no shame or indeed honour - if they had then they would have gone long since.

Philippa Day in happier times; her
 tragic and unnecessary death was  proof
 of the truth of Camus' comment.

The whole episode reminds me of a famous point made by French author/philosopher Albert Camus who said "Every wrong idea ends in bloodshed, but it is always the bloodshed of innocent others". Quite; the wrong ideas of successive Tory government austerity policies meant that we were woefully and criminally unprepared for the effects of this pandemic, the wrong ideas of Boris Johnson and his cronies in managing our national response to the pandemic then made that situation immeasurably worse. And in the case of poor Philippa Day (and almost certainly many others) the wrong ideas of successive Tory governments and ministers (most notably Iain Duncan Smith) in respect of protecting and supporting the most vulnerable in our fragile society have been both directly and indirectly at the bottom of these many and tragic events.

We should be very, very worried at the failure of those in power and those charged with making potentially life and death decisions to recognise the profound moral requirements associated with their role and equally worryingly their reluctance to accept the ultimate responsibility for their actions and decisions.